6 Tricks That Helped Me Triple My SaaS' Growth Rate

Talk given at Microconf 2014

Transcript

1. 6 TRICKS THAT HELPED ME TRIPLE MY SAAS' GROWTH RATE @brennandunn
2. I’M A HACKER & I LIKE GROWTH
4. I’M A SOLOPRENEUR •Planscope (SaaS) •“Double Your Freelancing Rate” (Book) •“Sell Yourself Online: The Blueprint” (Book) •The Freelancers Guild (Membership Site / Course) •Consultancy Masterclass (Workshop) •The Business of Freelancing (Podcast) •Freelancers Weekly (Newsletter)
7. WE’RE ALL HERE TO GROW
9. WE’RE ALL HERE TO MAKE MORE MONEY
11. “HOW BIG IS YOUR TEAM?”
12. LET’S TALK ABOUT 6 THINGS YOU CAN DO TO SPEND MORE TIME WITH THESE PEOPLE* * Your goal will (and, uh, should) be something other than the three people displayed to the right :-)
13. THE ALL IMPORTANT SALES FUNNEL Visitors Trials Activations Paid
14. PAID CUSTOMER CHURN April June August
15. IDENTIFY & TWEAK POINTS OF OPTIMIZATION
16. 1 REAQUIRING DRIVE-BYS
17. GOAL: DRIVE INTERESTED PEOPLE BACK TO YOU
18. “GOOGLE, HOW DO I RAISE MY RATES?”
19. “GOOGLE, I NEED PROJECT MANAGEMENT SOFTWARE.”
20. AVOID “ONE SIZE FITS ALL” RETARGETING
21. MARKETING SITE + DISPLAY NETWORK BLOG + FACEBOOK
22. RETARGETING IS MORE THAN JUST CONVERTING VISITORS • Invitation to join the founder for 1-on-1 onboarding • RSVP for an upcoming webinar or mastermind • Videos or blog posts of success stories or usage guides • Product updates • Compliment and reinforce your trial lifecycle communication
23. 2 SEGMENTING
24. GOAL: MAKE THIS A PRODUCT-FOR-ONE
25. “I own a development consultancy, and we bill $10,000 a week.” Lifecycle emails “When I ran my consultancy, I…” Onboarding Sample project with development-y tasks, rate of $10k/week In-app Messaging Reporting verbiage, button labels, etc.
26. FURTHER WAYS TO INDIVIDUALIZE • Listed in a 3rd party integration marketplace? You have referrer data — auto-default to linking with the referring tool. • Create specialized landing pages for each persona. “I run a 20 person agency… there’s no WAY a tool that works for freelancers could help me.” • Figure out how, why, and where they first showed up on your site, and profile them for later. (<— Master-level)
27. TAKEAWAY A perfectly placed “If” condition can go a long way toward improving conversions.
28. 3 TRIAL SCORES
29. GOAL: LEARN + OPTIMIZE OUTREACH
30. WHAT’S COMMON ABOUT PEOPLE WHO BUY?
31. PEOPLE WHO BUY PLANSCOPE USUALLY… •Have created a project •Have invited a client to join their project •(Team accounts) Have invited their team members •Have integrated with a 3rd party invoicing app •Have logged 20+ hours of time
34. BUYING LOST NEEDS A PUSH 90% 60% 30% WHAT CAUSED THESE SCORES…?
35. YOUR #1 JOB IS TO NUDGE PEOPLE TOWARD CONVERTING
36. TAKEAWAY Write and test your automated emails inside Gmail before putting them inside a cron job.
37. 4 EDUCATE EVERYWHERE
38. GOAL: FOCUS ON THE CUSTOMER, NOT THE PRODUCT Your customer’s business Your product
39. “Click this button. Now enter a price in here. Then, click…” “Here are some tricks you can use to help you win this new project…” VS
40. SCREENSHOT OF CUSTOMER.IO EMAIL “You’ve just created your first estimate. My goal with this email is to help you raise the likelihood that your client will accept it 2-3x.”
41. CELEBRATE YOUR CUSTOMERS’ SUCCESSES (AND GATHER SOME GREAT TESTIMONIALS ALONG THE WAY…)
42. TAKEAWAY What actions ALIGN with why someone actually wants your product?
43. 5 DO AN EXIT INTERVIEW
44. GOAL: GO BEYOND WHAT FUNNELS CAN TELL US
45. THE NOT-SO-OBVIOUS REASON TO COLLECT CREDIT CARDS UPFRONT: REQUIRES PEOPLE TO CANCEL
49. PRODUCT ENVIRONMENTAL • Doesn’t do X • Too confusing to get setup • Too expensive • It kept breaking • My client wouldn’t use it • My team wouldn’t use it WHY DO PEOPLE CANCEL? • I got a job! At GitHub! • We stopped consulting • I wasn’t using it* • I ran out of client work* • Went out of business*
50. TAKEAWAY People are at the high water mark of their emotional entanglement with your product when they cancel.
51. 6 WAYS TO INCREASE LTV
52. THE GOAL OF THE TRIAL TO ESTABLISH PRODUCT FIT. WHEN DONE, CHARGE.
53. $3,216
54. April May June July August September Freelancer Plan Likely To Churn
55. Reacquire Traffic Segment Trials To Personalize Score To Learn & Optimize Enrich The Whole Customer Discover Why People Cancel Increase LTV Increase Visitor -> Trial Increase Trial -> Activation Increase Activation -> Paid Increase Activation -> Paid Increase Activation -> Paid Decrease Churn Decrease Churn
56. Reacquire Traffic Segment Trials To Personalize Score To Learn & Optimize Enrich The Whole Customer Discover Why People Cancel Increase LTV +1% Visitor -> Trial +15% Trial -> Activation +7% Activation -> Paid +7% Activation -> Paid +7% Activation -> Paid Decrease Churn Decrease Churn
57. +33% PAID ACCOUNTS
58. LOOK FOR REPEATABLE QUESTS THAT GET YOU TO THAT NEXT LEVEL FASTER.